While searching for resources to support the needs of my ENG2D – Grade 10 English students, I stumbled upon an amazing tool created by Sonja Munévar Gagnon of the San Diego County Office of Education Learning and Leadership. The tool is an analytical writing organizer called TEPAC (Topic, Evidence, Paraphrasing, Analysis, Conclusion) which helps students stay on-topic and produce writing that makes meaning of a text. I shared these resources with the class today:

The first resource is an explanation of TEPAC’s parts:

The second resource includes phrases and key words to help students effectively organizer their thinking:

Finally, the third resource is a blank graphic organizer for students to use. First, I provide a prompt connected to the text we are studying, (in our case it’s Lord of the Flies) and then students respond by answering in the topic sentence.

I’m hoping that this organizer resource will help students who had difficulty coming up with organized analytical writing on the first essay assignments. Combined with the Point-Support-Explanation model, these tools should improve student’s writing.